Rich marbles, richer painting, shrines where But they without its light can see The chamber carved so curiously,

flame

The lamps of gold, and haughty dome which Carved with figures strange and sweet, All made out of the carver's brain,

vies

In air with earth's chief structures, though For a lady's chamber meet:

their frame

The lamp with twofold silver chain

Sits on the firm-set ground, and this the cloud Is fastened to an angel's feet. must claim.

In This, I fondly hoped to cusp, A Friend whom Death alone could sever

But lavy with malignant Grasp,
Has toon thee from my

I neither seeke by bribes to please,
Nor by desert to breed offence.
Thus do I live; thus will I die ;
Would all did so as well as I!

SIR EDWARD DYER.*

TO THE HON. CHARLES MONTAGUE.
OUR hopes, like towering falcons, aim
At objects in an airy height;
But all the pleasure of the game
Is afar off to view the flight.

The worthless prey but only shows
The joy consisted in the strife ;
Whate'er we take, as soon we lose

In Homer's riddle and in life.

So, whilst in feverish sleeps we think
We taste what waking we desire,
The dream is better than the drink,
Which only feeds the sickly fire.

To the mind's eye things well appear,

At distance through an artful glass; Bring but the flattering objects near,

They're all a senseless gloomy mass.

Seeing aright, we see our woes :

Then what avails it to have eyes? From ignorance our comfort flows, The only wretched are the wise.

MATTHEW PRIOR.

OF MYSELF.

THIS only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.

Some honor I would have,

Not from great deeds, but good alone;
The unknown are better than ill known:
Rumor can ope the grave.
Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends
Not on the number, but the choice, of friends.

Books should, not business, entertain the light,
And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night.
My house a cottage more
Than palace; and should fitting be
For all my use, no luxury.

Thus would I double my life's fading space;
For he that runs it well twice runs his race.
And in this true delight,
These unbought sports, this happy state,
I would not fear, nor wish, my fate;
But boldly say each night,
To-morrow let my sun his beams display,
Or in clouds hide them; I have lived to-day.

ABRAHAM COWLEY.

* This is frequently attributed to William Byrd. Bartlett, how ever, gives it to Sir Edward Dyer, referring to Hannah's Courtly

Poets as authority; so, also, Ward, in his English Poets, Vol. I., 1880.

BEAUTY.

'T is much immortal beauty to admire,
But more immortal beauty to withstand;
The perfect soul can overcome desire,
If beauty with divine delight be scanned.
For what is beauty but the blooming child
Of fair Olympus, that in night must end,
And be forever from that bliss exiled,
If admiration stand too much its friend?
The wind may be enamored of a flower,
The ocean of the green and laughing shore,
The silver lightning of a lofty tower,
But must not with too near a love adore
Or flower and margin and cloud-capped tower
Love and delight shall with delight devour!

;

LORD EDWARD THUrlow.

My garden painted o'er

Yet oft it falls that many a gentle mind

With Nature's hand, not Art's; and pleasures Dwells in deformèd tabernacle drowned,

yield,

Horace might envy in his Sabine field.

Either by chance, against the course of kind,
Or through unaptnesse in the substance found,
Which it assumed of some stubborne ground,
That will not yield unto her form's direction,
But is performed with some foul imperfection.